Ramsgate Ramsgate 2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection . Related subjects: Geography of Great Britain Ramsgate Statistics Population: 37,967 Ordnance Survey OS grid reference: TR385645 Administration District: Thanet Shire county: Kent Region: South East England Constituent country: England Sovereign state : United Kingdom Other Ceremonial county: Kent Historic county: Kent Services Police force: Kent Police Fire and rescue: {{{Fire}}} Ambulance: South East Coast Post office and telephone Post town: RAMSGATE Postal district: CT11 Dialling code: 01843 Politics UK Parliament: Thanet South European Parliament : South East England Ramsgate is an English seaside town on the Isle of Thanet in East Kent. It was one of the great English seaside towns of the 19th century and is a member of the ancient confederation of Cinque ports. Population: 2001 census 37,967. Ramsgate's main attraction is its coastline and its main industries are tourism and fishing. The town has one of the largest marinas on the English south coast and Port Ramsgate has provided cross channel ferries for many years.

History Ramsgate as a name has its earliest reference as Hraefn's ate, or cliff gap, later to be rendered 'Ramisgate' or 'Remmesgate' around 1225 and 'Ramesgate' from 1357. Ramsgate's Royal Harbour Arial photo showing two out of three harbour compartments A map of Ramsgate from 1945 The construction of Ramsgate Harbour was begun in 1749 but not finally completed until about 1850. The two most influential architects of the Harbour were John Shaw Senior and John Shaw Junior. They designed the clockhouse, the obelisk, the lighthouse and the Jacobs Ladder steps . It has the unique distinction of being the only Royal Harbour in the United Kingdom, King George IV having awarded the title following his successful visit with the Royal Yacht Squadron in 1821. It is evident from many accounts of local sea rescues that the Ramsgate tugboats, whilst undertaking salvage work were also able to assist with the saving of lives.

The Tugmen performed many a noteworthy task in this regard, either alone or by co-operation with the Lifeboats, which they would regularly tow to the scene of an imminent disaster to stand off whilst the smaller craft would attend. A Lifeboat station was established at Ramsgate as early as 1802, its first Lifeboat having been built for the Trustees of the Harbour by the lifeboat pioneer Henry Greathead. Half a century later however, during which time the station had been closed for 28 years, a new Ramsgate Lifeboat, the 'Northumberland' appeared there in 1851. The lifeboat was named in honour of the lifeboat sponsor, the Duke of Northumberland. The new and prized boat had been built in accordance with the plans of a model that had been the prize-winner in the 1851 national competition for the best design for such a craft. It was in the summer of 1824 that Captain K. Martin, then the Harbour Master at Ramsgate, instituted the proceedings of the first known cricket match on the Goodwin Sands, at low water.

Such was the tenacity of local mariners, a tradition sprung up that survives to this day, whereby those so inclined make the journey to the Sands for a leisurely few hours in pursuit of this very English past-time. In 1859 Jerimiah Walker (having previously distinguished himself by his humane, zealous and successful efforts in rescuing the Master and the crew of the Northern Belle), as a seaman of the lugger "Petrel" assisted in the rescue of the crew of the Spanish vessel "Julia", which had become stranded off Ramsgate. For this assistance he was awarded a medal struck on the Authority of Queen Donna Isabella II of Spain, thus Walker is believed to be one of the few men to have received two separate medals issued by different Heads of State. On New Year's Day 1861 an event at sea of considerable loss of life occurred with the wreck of the " Guttenburg". Then, as now, without a doubt, by far the most hazardous area around the Kent coastline to any navigator was the most notorious Goodwin Sands. Electric Tramways & Lighting Co. Ltd.

At the turn of the 20th century, the Isle of Thanet saw the introduction of about 11 miles of track, laid down for the use of the Electric Tramways & Lighting Co. Ltd, which began its service with electric trams on 4 April 1901, linking the towns of Ramsgate, Margate and Broadstairs. On 3 August 1905, an unseasonably wet summer's day, Car No. 41, during a routine descent of the precipitous, and adverse camber leading down Madeira Walk hill into Ramsgate harbour, suddenly careered out of control, jumping the tracks, causing it to crash straight through the railings, so that it then dropped over the 30-foot cliff edge adjacent. Providentially, only a few passengers were travelling on Car No. 41 that day, and they came out of the ordeal unscathed, but the driver, who was new to the job, sustained some injury. The Electric Tramways & Lighting Co. Ltd. continued to operate with no further significant incidents recorded until its services were replaced with the buses of the East Kent Road Car Co, which began on 27 March 1937.

This was one of the few inter-urban tramways in Britain, owned by a private company and running through open countyside between the three towns (most of it built over now}. Much of the route was on its own right of way, and this only became public roads when the tramway was abandoned. The line started in Westbrook west of Margate, at the junction of Canterbury and Walton roads. A little tram-shed survived there until recently, and the tram-tracks were to be preserved in the housing development replacing it. Along Canterbury Road and the sea-front, then dividing in two. In the Broadstairs direction, up Paradise Street (now incorporated into Fort Hill dual carriageway); from Broadstairs, down Fort Hill and along King Street. Then Fort Crescent, Athelstan Road, Northdown Road to private track connecting to Lower Northdown Road. This bit is now a public footpath. Lower Northdown Road eastwards to the Wheatsheaf, then cuts across country to Northdown Hill. This bit is a rough track now. Past the main tramshed on the corner, still there and used as factory units, into Westover Road.

Church Street (over railway) to St Peters, Albion Road to crossroads, left under railway bridge by Broadstairs station, along Broadstairs High Street to Queens Road, Oscott Road and the seafront. Then along private right of way to Ramsgate, now Dumpton Park Drive. Bellevue Road, Plains of Waterloo, Nelson Crescent, down Madeira Walk to Ramsgate Harbour. Up Royal Parade, Paragon, St Augustines Road, all the way along Grange Road, right at Park Road, to the old South Eastern Ry station where it had its own approach to the south of the station.This was the terminus. There was also a short-cut between Ramsgate and St Peters called the Top Road, which ran from the crossroads by Broadstairs station, south along Osborne Road, Gladstone Road, across Ramsgate Road and on private right of way (now Salisbury Avenue) to the main line. This was very lightly used and no-one is sure why it was built. Broadstairs town wanted to build a proper town centre at the station crossroads before WWI but could not find the money, and this may have had something to do with it.

The company wanted to extend to Birchington, but was defeated by the landowners of housing estates at Westgate who wanted to keep the riff-raff away. Perhaps as a result, Westgate was refused its application to become a separate urban district because it lacked "civic character" before WWI (it became part of Margate).A line to Pegwell village was also proposed. The trams were double-decker, but never had roofs on the upper deck, even in winter. This was because the track was narrow-gauge and there were many right-angle bends. Twelve could squeeze into the lower deck, where there were two wooden benches facing each other, but in bad weather the top deck was extremely unpleasant. The service could not hope to compete with buses all year round, even if the trams were fondly remembered on hot summer days. Ramsgate at war Because of its proximity to mainland Europe, Ramsgate was a chief embarkation point both for the Dunkirk evacuation and during the Napoleonic Wars . 4,200 ships left Ramsgate Harbour to rescue men from the Dunkirk beaches during World War 2 .

On 24 May 1990, the 50th anniversary of the evacuation of Dunkirk was remembered when some 80 of the original 'little ships' gathered at Dover and Ramsgate to repeat the now historic crossing of the channel. Only six out of this fleet had any difficulties, but were assisted by others in the flotilla. One of these little ships was the first Motor lifeboat stationed of Ramsgate which was named the 'Prudential' and had arrived on station by 1926. During World War II the Ramsgate lifeboat and crew were called out 60 times, greatly distinguishing themselves with the saving of 170 lives, in addition to the men brought back from Dunkirk: (Jeff Morris). One of the Dunkirk 'little ships' still moored at Ramsgate and open to the public is the Motor Yacht Sundowner, (built 1912) once the private yacht of the second officer of the Titanic , C.H. Lightoller, whom surviving that fatal wreck later insisted personally at being at the helm during the evacuation of Dunkirk.

He succeeded in bringing home 127 members of the 'Expeditionary Forces' in just one trip. After these events 42,783 soldiers were transported from Ramsgate railway station, carried by 82 southern rail special trains, the second busiest station during the evacuation, next to Dover , which carried over 180,000 men moved by 327 trains. Shortly before the outbreak of World War II the local council, thanks in large part to the town Mayor Alderman Kempe , decided to enlarge the existing tunnels under the town as a public air-raid shelter - and after the war started the national government finally gave permission to spend the money - it was built and used a lot during the raids. See the Subterranea Britannica website for mote details. Geography Ramsgate is located 78 miles from central London in an East South Easterly direction at one of the most Easterly points of the country (the furthest point east being North Foreland in nearby Broadstairs). Infact, Ramsgate even has its own meridian line and Mean Time which is 5 mins 41 secs ahead of Greenwich Mean Time.

The town is now the amalgamation of two settlements. One being the fishing community based on the coast in the shallow valley between two chalk cliffs and the other a farming community inland that is now the Parish of St. Lawrence. The cliffs are now known as the East Cliff and the West Cliff and are predominantly residential areas. There are promenades along both cliff tops with parks at either end and sand beaches on the coast. Politics Ramsgate falls in the Thanet South constituency, a seat won by Labour Member of Parliament Dr Stephen Ladyman. The seat was won after digraced Conservative MP for Thanet South, Jonathan Aitken, was convicted of perjury and sentenced to 18 months in prison. The town is currently an unparished area, and does not have a town council, but a movement called 'Ramsgate First' is campaigning to form one. Political History Something almost amounting to a tradition for industrial militancy may be found in the history pages of Ramsgate. Such an occasion happened in August 1920 when following a decision by the Ramsgate corporation to sell 1000 tons of locally produced coke to Denmark , set of what became known as the 'coke riot'.

It was unfortunate perhaps that these shipments were to be transported by two German ships, the first world war still fresh in local minds. Massive police protection of the harbour was required, but this did not prevent local people from venting their displeasure upon the local authorities. During the 1984 National Union of Mineworkers Strike, Ramsgate became the focus of media attention with several blockades of the Harbour by the coalmen of the nearby colleries, which had until then supported a sizable workforce throughout Thanet. Ramsgate was also the original location of the pressure group Critical Mass, which began its days in opposition to the government of Margaret Thatcher , often in support of the NUM. Critical Mass was founded in 1984 as a result of regulations that prevented local inhabitants out of work from living in the then-numerous empty hotels desperate for trade. The BBC made a documentary about these events, which was named Red Herrings, and broadcast on BBC2 in 1985. Economy Ramsgate marina, location of many popular bars and pubs Ramsgate's main industries are tourism and fishing .

The town has a thriving marina with over 800 moorings and a range of marine-related businesses that operate in premises in the renovated arches under Royal Parade. The town caters extensively for students of EFL (English as a foreign language) at its colleges. Port Ramsgate has provided cross channel ferries for many years. Previously Sally Ferries provided a service of passenger and car ferries to Dunkirk. Currently a service of prodominantly freight is provided to Oostende. There is some light industry in the town. A possible future industry is power generation, with a potential 800 jobs being created by the projected London Array, a wind farm just off the coast. Demographics Population: 1989 census estimate 38,200. Population: 2001 census 37,967 Tourism Ramsgate Main Sands Ramsgate's main attraction is its coastline, particularly Ramsgate Main Sands, which has been awarded a 2006 Blue Flag, assuring high standards of cleanliness and general beach management. There is an annual Powerboat Grand Prix event based out of the harbour of Ramsgate during the summer.

Sports Ramsgate Football Club plays its home games at The Southwood Stadium (capacity: 5,000) and wears an all red outfit at home and yellow and green away from home. Ramsgate had previously been called Ramsgate Athletic and it is not since these days that Ramsgate had qualified for the First Round Proper of the FA Cup, until the 2005/06 season. Ramsgate played in the Isthmian League (formerly Ryman League) Division One during the 2005/06 season, after gaining promotion from the Kent League and went on to win the league (joint on points with Horsham). They have therefore been promoted to the Isthmian League Premier Division for the 2006/07 season. Notable Residents Townley House in the 1950s Gary Pallister, a Footballer who played for Manchester United F.C. and Middlesbrough F.C. was born in Ramsgate.

During a period of increased religious emotion, Vincent Van Gogh taught french amongst other things as a supply teacher at a school at 6 Royal Road and boarded at 11 Spencer Square for a period in 1876. He made some sketches of the view from his lodgings overlooking the harbour. The proprietor of the school relocated to Isleworth, Middlesex. Vincent decided to walk to the new location, which took 3 days via Canterbury and Chatham. This new position did not work out, and Vincent became a nearby Methodist minister's assistant in wanting to "preach the gospel everywhere". Karl Marx is known to have stayed in the town around 9 times, as did his commrade Friedrich Engels. One known spot is on Hardres Street. Whilst still a princess, Queen Victoria spent holidays in Ramsgate and stayed at Townley House, near what is now Farleys Furniture Store. Former British Prime Minister Edward Heath was schooled at Chatham House Grammar School. Comedian Frank Muir was born in Ramsgate and also schooled at Chatham House. Olympic gold medalist for hockey, Sean Kerly, was another attendee of Chatham House.

Architect, Moses Montefiore was heavily involved in the affairs of Ramsgate and owned East Cliff Lodge. His tomb is adjacent to the synagogue in Ramsgate. Mathematician Alfred North Whitehead was born in Ramsgate Architecture The town has three notable churches. The first building used for worship in the Thanet parish of 'St Lawrence' was at St Laurence-in-Thanet, built in 1062 and rebuilt during the following centuries with the most significant changes being in the 16th century . Note the difference in spelling between that of the Village of St Lawrence and the church, which is dedicated to the Roman Martyr, Laurence. The second notable church is St Augustines, which is situated on the towns westcliff. Considered one of the most august and distinct surviving St Augustine's, it was designed by Augustus Pugin in 1847 in the neo-Gothic style. Its dedication commemorates Augustine, the first Archbishop of Canterbury , who landed at Ramsgate in AD 596 and brought Christianity to Britain.

Thirdly, the town's Parish Church of St George is situated just off the towns highstreet and provides a striking view over the town and a trip to view its lantern tower is well worth a visit. The ground was concecrated on 23 October 1827. Its latern tower was added at the request of Trinity House as a navigational aid to passing ships St Augustine' serves its own abbey and the town's Catholic community, whilst St Laurence and St George are both Church of England , and serve the anglican community as part of the Diocese of Canterbury. Ramsgate library was original built and paid for by Andrew Carnegie in 1904. On the evening of Friday 13th August 2004 a fire destroyed Ramsgate library just two months short of its 100th anniversary. Though suspicions were raised as to what started the fire due to a similarily timed fire at the towns registry office, an inquest concluded that the blaze was too intense to pinpoint where and how the fire started. Plans for a new library are now in place and it is hoped a new one will be built by 2007.

Transportation By Sea The harbour provides shelter from the effect of storms and is close to the Goodwin Sands. It is now the site of one of the largest and most thriving marinas on the English south coast (there were 12,000 visiting boats in 2005) with 800 moorings. The town has had a long and chequered relationship with cross channel ferries. Passenger ferries to Dunkirk were operated for many years by Sally Ferries who eventually were forced to close due to stiff competition from Dover-Calais ferries and the Channel Tunnel. Trans Europa Ferries passenger and freight ferries now frequently sail to Ostend in Belgium . By Road The main route to Ramsgate from London is to follow the M2 motorway to its bitter end and to get onto the A299. At St Nicolas-At-Wade roundabout take the 3rd exit onto the A299 (signposted Ramsgate). At Monkton Roundabout take the 2nd exit onto the A253 (signposted Ramsgate, Broadstairs).

At Minster Roundabout take the 2nd exit onto the A253 (signposted Ramsgate, Broadstairs). Continue forward onto Canterbury Road West - A253. At Lord Of The Manor roundabout (a double roundabout) take the 2nd exit and then the first exit onto Canterbury Road East - A299 (signposted Ramsgate). By Rail Ramsgate railway station is operated by Southeastern (train operating company) and is situated at the top of the town near the parish of St Lawrence. Trains from the station run to London Charing Cross and London Victoria via Margate, Chatham and Bromley South, or via Canterbury West or Dover Priory and Ashford International. By Air The town is situated directly under the flight path of Kent International Airport at Manston. From September 2004 to August 2005 a low-cost airline EUjet operated frequent flights to many European destinations, replacing a large freight operator. However, flights were suspended after the collapse of its parent company, PlaneStation Group plc. The sale of Manston to Infratil (owner of Glasgow Prestwick International Airport) was completed on 26 August 2005.

Charter operator Kent Escapes will use the Manston site to run weekly passenger flights to Barcelona , Spain and Faro, Portugal from summer 2006. Infratil are in negotiations with other airlines to add further destinations. Education St Lawrence College private school in Ramsgate Infant Schools Obituary: Sir Edward Heath | Politics | The Guardian Sir Edward Heath Conservative prime minister who took Britain into Europe and served 51 years in the House of Commons Sir Edward Heath. Photograph: Jane Bown Francis Boyd and Norman Shrapnel Monday 18 July 2005 10.16 EDT First published on Monday 18 July 2005 10.16 EDT Share on Messenger Close When Edward Heath, who has died aged 89, took Britain into the European Economic Community in 1971, it was the culmination of a lifetime of undeviating effort.

Europe was his great theme - from his maiden speech in 1950 on the Schuman plan for coordinating western Europe's steel industries, to the ones he was still making half a century later, when Tony Blair was in 10 Downing Street and his own battles with his successor as Conservative leader, Margaret Thatcher, had entered history. When an earlier Conservative prime minister, Harold Macmillan, first applied to join the then European Common Market in the early 1960s, Heath was in charge of the unsuccessful British negotiating team. His widely praised work won him the Charlemagne prize. Shortly before Heath became prime minister in 1970, the third British application to join the Common Market had been submitted by Labour's Harold Wilson. But Wilson's singleness of purpose was in doubt. Heath's was not. On October 28 1971, the Commons voted with a 112 majority to go into Europe. After that, little went well. Singlemindedness and determination could also look like obstinacy and arrogance.

Heath had won the 1970 election - against all the forecasts - with a majority of 30 and an unchallenged personal authority; he lost that in 1974, amid gloom and industrial chaos. The 1970 victory had been preceded by talk of competitiveness, lower taxes, the hunting down of "lame duck" industry, a curb on public spending and an assault on what was seen as untrammelled trade union power. But then events, as Macmillan would have said, intruded. In 1971 Rolls-Royce faced bankruptcy and was partly nationalised and bailed out, as was Upper Clyde Shipbuilders. The attack on unions triggered the 1972 saga of the Pentonville 5, while the battle with the miners ended in victory for the NUM. Public spending rocketed. In Northern Ireland, internment was followed by Bloody Sunday and the beginning of the IRA assault on mainland Britain.

Internationally, in the wake of the Yom Kippur war, energy prices went up four-fold, and in 1973-74 there was renewed conflict with the NUM, the slide into the three-day week and the February 1974 election, called around the slogan, "Who governs?" The answer turned out to be Wilson, after a near dead-heat between the Labour and the Conservatives . Wilson called another election that October. He won a majority of three, but for many Tory MPs losing was a sin. In 1975, Margaret Thatcher won the leadership from Heath. While it may have been radical for the Conservatives to choose a woman, from Heath's point of view the irony was that they had chosen another meritocrat. For that was where he had come in. His party had seen the need in the mid-1960s to set Heath, their own meritocrat, to catch Labour's formidable Wilson, and that confrontation dominated a decade of British parliamentary life. Wilson was loquacious, self-justifying, scornful, though anxious to please, fundamentally warm-hearted. Heath was tight-lipped, introverted, seemingly cold.

Yet his performance was more effective than the headlines often made out, even if his carelessness about image-building must at times have been the despair of what are now labelled spin doctors. After Thatcher toppled him, his incapacity to do or say the right thing verged on high comedy. He regarded her as authoritarian, egotistical, intolerant, an aberration among Conservative leaders. There was no doubting their mutual dislike. Pointedly she left him out of her shadow cabinet when he and many observers were expecting him to be offered the foreign affairs brief. One of the most bizarre episodes in 20th century Britain's politics ensued. Onlookers were astonished, delighted, appalled, according to temperament and party. Some were all three as Heath delivered speech after critical speech. It might all have been dismissed as disgruntled soliloquies from a soured man, were it not that the drama increasingly involved the central theme of Heath's career: Europe. Thatcher, as he saw things, was pursuing a narrow nationalism that militated against this country playing a full part in Europe. The great issue is still unresolved, all these years after Heath led the British to Brussels.

This lingering insularity, encouraged by what he regarded as the obstinate egotism and narrow vision of his successor, provided him with a cause that saved him from that elder statesman's fate of subsiding into the Lords or persisting on the Commons backbenches like an extinct volcano. Heath declined to be extinct. He and his great theme remained active. And after Thatcher's memorable fall in November 1990, her predecessor wore Westminster's widest, toothiest smile and borrowed one of her own phrases: "Rejoice, rejoice". In July, 1965, Heath was the first Conservative leader to be chosen by secret ballot of MPs, the election having broken with the patrician system by which his predecessor, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, had "emerged" as leader in 1963. But it was Douglas-Home during his leadership who had instituted that ballot as a means of selecting, and deselecting, leaders. Heath's origin and career were in sharp contrast with those of his aristocratic predecessor. His father had been a Kent carpenter before becoming a master builder, his mother a lady's maid.

Born in Broadstairs, he began his education as a choral scholar at St Peter's, the local Church of England school, at seven he began piano lessons. He won a scholarship to Chatham House grammar school, Ramsgate, took his school certificate at 13, was playing the organ at 14 and conducting at 15. He won an organ scholarship to Balliol College, Oxford, became president of the university Conservative association in 1937 and of the Oxford Union in 1939. In those times he visited Nazi Germany and attended a Nuremberg rally, and, as a supporter of the Spanish republic, came under machine gun fire while driving down the Spanish coast. During the 1938 Oxford byelection which Quintin Hogg, the future Lord Hailsham, won as the pro-appeasement Conservative candidate, Heath worked for the anti-appeasement candidate, the then Master of Balliol, AD Lindsay. That year too he won a scholarship to Gray's Inn, London. He never took it up because in 1939 came the second world war.

He fought in north-west Europe with the Honourable Artillery Company, rose to lieutenant-colonel and was awarded the military MBE and mentioned in dispatches. After the war, Heath became a civil servant, then took a post as news editor of the Church Times in 1947. Thatcher would have her husband's wealth behind her, but Heath, like John Major, William Hague , Iain Duncan-Smith, and Michael Howard, had to earn a living. In 1948, he became a trainee in the finance house of Brown, Shipley and Company. In 1949 at Bexley's "bread-rationing byelection" he reduced the Labour majority from 11,000 to 1,000. At the 1950 general election he won the redistributed seat with a 133 majority. After the Conservatives won the 1951 general election, he became a junior whip and resigned from Brown, Shipley to devote himself to politics. He was energetic, thorough, efficient and a master both of detail and of his temper.

The public had some idea of his political attitudes from his contribution to the seminal Conservative pamphlet, One Nation (1950). But then he remained silent in the Commons as deputy chief whip (1953-55) and chief whip (1955-59), before emerging as labour minister. From 1960-63, he was Lord Privy Seal with Foreign Office responsibilities and as such handled the Common Market negotiations. He was in his element, dealing with like-minded men over details of trade. Never caught out by questions, he emerged as a fervent European. When Sir Alec Douglas-Home succeeded Macmillan as prime minister in 1963, Heath was promoted to secretary of state for industry, trade and regional development and president of the board of trade. His main work was to secure the enactment of the resale prices bill which, against stiff Conservative opposition, limited the scope of price agreements. It was not until the Conservatives lost office in October, 1964, that the House had a fair opportunity to judge Heath's ability in a wider context.

His ability, familiarity with trade and finance, toughness in controversy - all fed belief among Conservatives that he was the man to restore them to power. Nevertheless, when the leadership election came, in 1965, Heath did not win outright. But his rivals Reginald Maudling and Enoch Powell withdrew their candidacies before the second ballot and Heath became leader. He was promptly confronted with the task of preserving party unity over policy towards Ian Smith's white minority regime in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), when it made its 1965 unilateral declaration of independence. UDI challenged the authority of the crown and parliament and Wilson's government took steps - mainly sanctions - to undermine the Smith regime. There was a strong Conservative element, led by Lord Salisbury, which supported Smith. But, backed by Douglas-Home, Heath overcame the revolt. Then came 1966, the high tide of Wilson's political ascendancy, a 98-seat Labour majority in place of the four-seat majority which had determined the 1964 result. Probably no Conservative could have defeated Labour in that year, but for Heath's enemies, later, that defeat would be seen as a harbinger of worst times to come.

By 1968 Labour's popularity had plummetted. Yet it was that April that Powell made his "rivers of blood" speech on immigration. Neither Heath, nor any of his colleagues had been consulted. The Conservative leader sacked Powell, and thus opened up a fissure in his party which persisted. In June 1970 Wilson called an election. He, and much of the media, assumed that victory was in the bag for Labour. But it was to be Heath's triumph, although it would last less than four years. But Heath had hinterland, as his Oxford contemporary Denis Healey would say. By the time he quit the Commons in 2001, he was Father of the House, yet another addition to the honours, political, academic and artistic which he accumulated. And there was the music and the yachting. The latter saw him win the 1969 Sydney to Hobart race, captain Britain's 1971 Admiral's Cup team and be part of the 1980 Sardinia Cup team. His books included his Godkin lectures, Old World, New Horizons (1970), and Sailing A Course In My Life (1975).

Michael White writes: To stay in public life for 26 years after being rejected resoundingly by the electorate and one's own party suggests either implacable determination or bloody-minded stubbornness. In Heath's case it was both. Winston Churchill, the patron of his early promotion, was clearly his model. Both spurned the Lords, but Churchill was 80, not 58, when he left No 10 trailing only slightly tarnished glory, not humiliation. Critics dubbed it the longest sulk in parliamentary history. But Heath had much to say on many topics and, as a man whose sleeve had been brushed by Hitler's at a rally in Nuremberg in 1937, he brought increasingly unique insights to the task. At times during the years he sat in his corner seat below the Commons gangway, it seemed as if he was determined to stay there until Thatcher was not only politically down, but ideologically out as well. Had he lived to attend her funeral, one can imagine him thinking he had finally made his point. But nothing proved so cut and dried. The limits of economic Thatcherism had been demonstrated, especially in its monetarist manifestation.

But the deregulated, privatised, market-oriented world she helped to create - rather more successfully than his own efforts - had triumphed almost everywhere. As for Europe, the great cause of Heath's career, Britain's place in it, in the wake of the Dutch and French referendums is still not clear. Heath's contempt for wilder Eurosceptic Tory talk of withdrawal from the European Union , or membership of the North American Free Trade Agreement, was always total. It could be counter-productive in a house increasingly peopled by Tory MPs who had been taught to regard him as a traitor and by Labour ones who thought, wrongly, that he was almost one of them. Towards the end he was often lumped together with his near-contemporary, Tony Benn. "Good Riddance" declared a Sunday Telegraph profile when the pair retired as MPs four years ago. But right until the end of his parliamentary career he remained, like Benn, a speaker who could half-fill a near-empty chamber. Europe was his overriding preoccupation and he coupled it with a wariness of American policy and motives which made him the least pro-Washington postwar premier.

Industrial policy, relations with Russia and the wider world, especially China, where he advised the Beijing government and often defended it, were frequent topics. The author of the "unacceptable face of capitalism" jibe (his target was Lonrho) attacked corruption and poor performance among the captains of industry, deepening Tory enmity as much as his opposition to some of his party's privatisations. That particular paradox was underlined when he spoke out fiercely against the widespread perception in the 1990s "sleaze era" that most MPs are less than honest and honourable. When he took that stance to the point of attacking the Nolan commission's report on reforming parliamentary accountability, few thought him wise. Friends who had taken his finances in hand in the 1970s helped make him comfortably well off. In addition to the yacht Morning Cloud, Heath owned a modest terrace house in Wilton Street, Belgravia, and another, much more magnificent and dating from Queen Anne, in Salisbury's Cathedral Close. Of the Chinese government's decision to put down the Tiananmen Square demonstrations in 1989, he said: "There was a crisis after a month in which the civil authorities had been defied.

They took action. Very well." And his conciliatory approach to Saddam Hussein also attracted widespread criticism. He was asked if he ever wondered if he was making the mistake that Neville Chamberlain had made. "No", he replied. In his defence, it could be said that former soldiers who have seen war are least keen to inflict it on others. But there was recurring evidence that he could be insensitive to democratic demands and insufficiently wary of authoritarian regimes. As MP for Bexley, Bexley Sidcup and Old Bexley and Sidcup from 1950 - when his majority had been smaller than the number of votes which Mr Job, the Communist party candidate, took off Labour (he often toasted Mr Job) - Heath kept a good agent who looked after constituents' needs, and he did not outstay his welcome among local loyalists until close to the end. Whe he stood down in 2001, Derek Conway, a Eurosceptic ex-whip, won the seat. The same election Tony Benn's seat went to the Lib Dems. Such are the indignities of political old age. But Heath's were more extensive, unusually so.

His complaint was that the Thatcherites who so brilliantly ousted him from the leadership in 1975, never accorded him the courtesies to which an ex-leader and premier was entitled. Invitations to consult, or to No 10 dinners, were virtually non-existent. There was no cabinet job offered when Mrs Thatcher won office in 1979, except some vague talk of the Washington embassy, which he took (rightly) as an insult. Apart from the Brandt commission on international development and north-south relations (1977-83), which was out of touch with the harsher temper of the times, he undertook few big public tasks, preferring to become what his lieutenant, Ian Gilmour, later called "the most distinguished backbencher since Richard Cobden" the Victorian apostle of free trade. But his style, never light, underlined the impression that he was sulking. Even his jokes had a habit of sounding like pomposity or bad temper to those who did not know him. Often they were self-deprecating, albeit disguised.

For many years he invited a group of political reporters to dinner on the eve of the Tory conference, at Salisbury in the south or the Riverside hotel at Poulton-le-Fylde when the conference was in Blackpool. He may have had half an eye on the good opinion of posterity, but it was also generous. Reporters in their 30s could hear, firsthand of that brush with Hitler's arm. "I am very good with widows," Heath would say. Certainly his later career, despite his many frustrations and disappointments, was neither lonely nor friendless. Lady Soames and Lady Woolf, the widow of his chief of staff, were among many who stayed loyal. And if there had never been a wife to console his solitude there was always music. He was still to be found at the Salzburg annual music festival until 2003. Heath claimed to have visited every country in the world except North Korea, Bolivia and Paraguay. In many countries he was treated rather more respectfully than at home, where his candour was redefined as petulance by his critics He remained determined that he would be vindicated, until close to the end.

· Edward Richard George Heath, politician, born July 9 1916; died July 17 2005. · This obituary has been revised and updated since the deaths of Francis Boyd, in 1995 and Norman Shrapnel last year.

Edward Heath Edward Heath Location of death: Salisbury, Wiltshire, England Cause of death: unspecified Executive summary: British Prime Minister, 1970-74 Military service: British Army (Royal Artillery, WWII) Father: (carpenter) Moses Montefiore - London and...Ramsgate <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>As a teenager growing up in the Isle of Thanet in Kent, I didn’t take much notice of road names.</p> <p>I may have been able to deduce that The Plains of Waterloo in Ramsgate had something to do with a famous British military victory, but Grange Road in the same town was just another road, and certainly not recognised as the road leading to the house designed by Augustus Pugin and as became his family home from 1844 until his death in 1852.</p> <div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="image-medium" src="" style="height:360px; width:480px" width="480" height="

360" />﻿</div> <div style="text-align: center;">The Grange<br /> </div> <p>Thus Montefiore Avenue was no more than a road with a pleasant name.

Only years later did the scales drop.</p> <p>The Bevis Marks Synagogue, in the eponymous street in the City of London, was completed in 1701 and is the spiritual home in the UK of the Spanish and Portuguese (Sephardic) Jews. More than that, it has been for long periods the religious centre of the Anglo-Jewish community.</p> <div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="image-medium" src="" style="height:360px; width:480px" width="480" height="360" />﻿</div> <div style="text-align: center;">The front of Bevis Marks Synagogue<br /> </div> <p>Amongst the members of its congregation was Moses Montefiore. Born in Livorno, Italy in 1784, he went to school in Kennington, South London, and started his working career apprenticed to a firm of grocers and tea merchants. From this modest start he rose to become a foremost financier in the City of London.</p> <p>Having achieved business success, Montefiore developed into a social reformer and philanthropist.

He was knighted in 1837, and in 1846 Queen Victoria conferred a baronetcy upon him in recognition of his services to humanitarian causes on behalf of the Jewish people.</p> <p>In 1831 Montefiore purchased a house with 24 acres of estate on the East Cliff of the then fashionable seaside town of Ramsgate. The house had previously been in the ownership of Queen Caroline of Brunswick, the wife of King George IV, though her tenure as Consort was brief (1820 until her death in 1821) and controversial.</p> <p>Soon after buying the estate, Montefiore bought adjoining land and instructed the architect David Mocatta to design a private synagogue for him. It was commissioned in June 1833.</p> <p>180 years later, the synagogue is not easy to find. Directions instruct you to ascend a narrow lane between numbers 101 and 103, Hereson Road, Ramsgate. The mystery delivers a thrill when the building, designed in a restrained Classical-Italianate style, comes into view.

The design apparently imitates that of Montefiore’s ancestral synagogue in Livorno (a spelling infinitely preferable to the ugly anglicised Leghorn).</p> <div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="image-medium" src="" style="height:360px; width:480px" width="480" height="360" />﻿</div> <div style="text-align: center;"> </div> <div class="rtecenter"><img alt="" class="image-medium" src="" style="height:360px; width:480px" width="480" height="360" />﻿</div> <div class="rtecenter">The most striking exterior feature is a clock, carrying the inscription: “Time flies, virtue alone remains.”<br /> </div> <div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="image-medium" src="" style="height:360px; width:480px" width="480" height="360" />﻿</div> <div class="rtecenter">Alongside the synagogue is Montefiore’s mausoleum.<

br /> </div> <div class="rtecenter"><img alt="" class="image-medium" src="" style="height:360px; width:480px" width="480" height="360" />﻿</div> <div class="rtecenter">The house no longer exists, and the land has been returned to woodland, but you can imagine the splendour and the views out to the Straits of Dover.<br /> </div> <div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="image-medium" src="" style="height:360px; width:480px" width="480" height="360" />﻿</div> <div style="text-align: center;">A new role for the land<br /> </div> <p>I attended secondary school at Chatham House Grammar School in Ramsgate, the alma mater of the Rt.

Hon. Edward Heath, former British Prime Minister. Being of a minority religion, Roman Catholic, I was excluded, alongside those of other minority religions, from the religious part of the school’s Anglican assembly.</p> <p>Only in researching this blogpost did I learn that the land on which Chatham House’s Junior School still stands, is the site of the former Townley Castle College, opened in 1890 and described by the Jewish Standard of 5 September 1890 as a high-class boarding school for young Jewish gentlemen. For this and other information above I am indebted to <a href=""> .The Jewish heritage of Ramsgate runs deep.</p> <p>And the Bevis Marks Synagogue received only minor damage during the Blitz of World War II. There is something pleasing in writing that sentence.</p> <p><strong><em>The author is a City of London and City of Westminster Guide, who runs walking tours in the City and in Westminster.

See tabs for further details.</em></strong></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/augustus-pugin" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Augustus Pugin</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/bevis-marks" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Bevis Marks</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/chatham-house-grammar-school" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Chatham House Grammar School</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/david-mocatta" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:pref

Label" datatype="">David Mocatta</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/edward-heath" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Edward Heath</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/george-iv" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">George IV</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/isle-thanet" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Isle of Thanet</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/jewish" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Jewish</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/montefiore-synagogue" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:

prefLabel" datatype="">Montefiore Synagogue</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/moses-montefiore" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Moses Montefiore</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/queen-caroline" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Queen Caroline</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/ramsgate" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Ramsgate</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/townley-castle-college" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Townley Castle College</a></div></div></div> Fri, 01 Nov 2013 11:30:00 +0000 Colin

Question: Which British Prime Minister attended Chatham House School in Ramsgate?
Answer: Ted Heath